Alvin A. Hyman, active veteran, salesman, diesServices for...

OBITUARIES

September 13, 1991

Alvin A. Hyman, active veteran, salesman, dies

Services for Alvin A. Hyman, who spent much of his life as a salesman and who held offices with the Jewish War Veterans, will be held at 10 a.m. today at the Hebrew Memorial Funeral Home, 1100 Reisterstown Road, Pikesville.

Mr. Hyman, who was 71, died Wednesday after a heart attack at his home on Fairview Road in Woodlawn.

A native of Columbia, Pa., who was reared in Reading, Mr. Hyman attended Temple University after serving in the Army during World War II.

In the war, he received the Distinguished Service Cross, the highest Army decoration after the Medal of Honor, for charging and capturing a German strong point, killing five German soldiers and capturing 25 more who were unaware that he had run out of ammunition.

He was earlier awarded a Bronze Star as a member of a group that beat back a German attack before the Battle of the Bulge. He also received three awards of the Purple Heart.

Commissioned in the Battle of the Bulge, he was shot three times, twice in that encounter and once earlier near Brest.

He came to Baltimore in 1952 after owning his own store, Baby Land Furniture and Clothing, in Reading.

He became a furniture salesman, working briefly at several stores before joining the Hecht Co. and becoming manager of the furniture departments of its stores in the Baltimore and Annapolis areas.

He sold cemetery lots for a time and then became the national sales representative for a Chicago truck mirror company, King of the Road Mirrors Inc. He retired six years ago after about five years as a partner in an Anne Arundel bingo hall, Bingo Las Vegas.

He held several offices in the Abe Golden Post of the Jewish War Veterans in Reading before coming to Baltimore, where he served as commander of the Caplan Post. After its merger into the Maryland Free State Post, he held several offices in that. He raised $200,000 for the post as its bingo chairman.

A former commander of the Department of Maryland, he also served as national adjutant of the Jewish War Veterans.

He was also a former treasurer and a member of the board and the executive committee of the National Jewish War Veterans Memorial. Also a life member of the Disabled American Veterans and a member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart and the Legion of Valor, he was a former chairman of the state Joint Veterans Committee. The committee named him Veteran of the Year in 1978.

He also was chairman of a committee to raise money for a Happy Room, a lounge with entertainment equipment for long-term patients at the new veterans hospital being built downtown. A member of the board of the Save-A-Heart Foundation, he had raised $200,000 in 12 years as chairman of its bingo committee.

Mr. Hyman is survived by his wife, the former Rona Waxman; a son, Joel Hyman of Westminster; a daughter, Phyllis Bloom of Randallstown; a brother, Herbert Hyman of Pikesville; a sister, Betty Shuster of Miami Beach, Fla.; and five grandchildren.

Services for James B. Richardson, a retired Dorchester County boat builder who did restorations and reconstructions of historic structures and boats, will be held at 2 p.m. today at the Cambridge Seventh-day Adventist Church, which he helped to build.

Mr. Richardson, who was 84 and lived in Lloyds, died Monday at the Deer's Head Center, a state hospital in Salisbury, after a stroke.

After he retired and closed the boatyard at his home on Le Compte Creek, he continued to do projects of his own, such as the bugeye, Jenny Norman, which he completed in 1989. He had operated the boatyard since the 1930s.

In addition to building and repairing work boats and working on PT boats and other wooden naval vessels during World War II, he built replicas of Colonial boats, the Dove at St. Mary's City and the Adventurer for the tercentenary celebration at Charleston, S.C.

About the time he retired, his skill at traditional wooden boat-building brought him a land-based commission near his home: reconstructing the Spocott Windmill, on the farm of former Sen. George L. Radcliffe, who died in 1974.

A native of Cambridge who was educated in public schools, Mr. Richardson received an honorary doctorate in 1978 from Salisbury State University for his work in preserving the culture of the Eastern Shore.

The Spocott Windmill, with wooden gears and canvas sails with a two-story housing mounted on a 24-inch post, posed a special problem. It was built in 1850 and blown down in an 1888 blizzard, and there were no books, models or experts to tell how it was done.

"What we had to do was construct our mill by trial and error," Mr. Richardson said in a later interview.

In addition to his boat building and church work, he had served as a member of the board of Dorchester General Hospital and as a member of the county's Zoning Appeals Board.